


tell me, you're so into me

by okaystop



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Bisexuality, Clubbing, Dating, Feelings, First Kiss, Flirting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 04:57:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19660285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaystop/pseuds/okaystop
Summary: "I'm just trying to figure you out.""You've known me for almost a decade," Tommy said, too casually. "Shouldn't you have figured me out by now?""I thought I did and now -" Lovett stopped in the middle of his thought, shook his head.





	tell me, you're so into me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dasyatidae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasyatidae/gifts).



> I started writing this at the very end of the Crooked Exchange this year and just didn't get to it for a while. So happy summer, here's another gift! Hope you enjoy this, dasyatidae. I, like you, am firmly in the "Tommy is bi" camp, and that was a big inspiration for this tommyjon fic.
> 
> Title is taken from (You Drive Me) Crazy, by Britney Spears. (I almost used lyrics from her song Dear Diary but I think I'm going to save that for a future fic.)
> 
> The usual: keep it secret, keep it safe, etc. etc.

\--

Lovett was on his third vodka soda, his tight black t-shirt sticking to his chest and soaked through under his arms, when he abandoned Ira and squeezed his way through the throng of moving bodies in search of the bathroom. It was a hot LA night and the club's air conditioning wasn't doing anything besides move around the recycled air. 

He was too old for this, he thought, or maybe just too cranky for this or maybe it was just that he wanted to get laid and there was no one in this overpacked club that caught his eye yet, meaning there was a very real possibility that wasn't going to happen tonight. 

He was going to complain about it to Ira, who would understand. Or at least who would listen to him complain. Not that Ira could do anything about it if he was in the same boat.

The bathroom was one of those trendy ones, a line of a half dozen single gender-neutral rooms created for the sole purpose of keeping indecent bumping and grinding and drunk handjobs off the dancefloor. So it wasn't a surprise when Lovett found every door locked. He sagged against the wall and looked down at his phone as a distraction. 

"Is anyone in here _not_ fucking?" he called out after waiting only about a minute without any of the doors opening or hearing anything flush.

Someone laughed. Someone else groaned, loudly, performatively, and Lovett rolled his eyes. "Look, I just have to pee, so if there's anyway some of you could hurry along or take a break or whatever." He leaned his head back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling.

The door at the far end opened. "Jesus, Lovett, do you have to call everyone out and shame them for having a good time?"

"I'm not shaming anyone," Lovett said automatically, a habit he'd grown into over the years with all of his friends. Who were not here, he realized, his attention snapping over to where _Tommy Vietor_ stood, washing his hands in the bathroom of a gay club in West Hollywood. 

Tommy looked back at him, barely-visible eyebrows disappearing into his brow, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Sure you're not," he said.

Lovett stared at him like he was a stranger, like he'd never looked at Tommy before. He'd certainly never seen Tommy dressed like - he was in a club. A gay club. Which they were. In a gay club. 

Tommy wore dark jeans that rode low on his hips and molded to his ass and thighs and a green button down without an undershirt - Lovett could tell because it was unbuttoned one button too many both at the top and, untucked, at the bottom. Lovett could see skin. Tommy's skin. Glistening at his throat and brow, at the jut of his hip bones, like he'd just been grinding out on the dancefloor like everyone else.

Tommy wiped his palms on his thighs and gestured to the bathroom he'd just vacated. "Lovett? It's all yours." 

Lovett had forgotten that he was there because he had to pee. "What? Oh - yeah." He hurried past Tommy, stutter-stepping before the bathroom door as though he was expecting someone else to come out after Tommy. He didn't want to think about the implications of _that_ , and was at the same time very relieved that it didn't happen. "Thanks," he muttered before ducking inside and locking the door behind him.

Lovett flattened himself against the closed door, eyes screwed shut as he fought to get his heart rate down and for his traitorous dick to soften. "What the fuck -?" He wasn't drunk enough to have hallucinated Tommy in the club's bathroom. He knew that for a fact, and besides, alcohol wasn't a drug that made him hallucinate. 

He shook himself out of it and did what he went in there for in the first place. When he left the bathroom, door swinging shut behind him, Tommy was nowhere to be seen and Lovett decided to definitely pretend that the entire encounter had absolutely never happened.

Which lasted about as long as it took Lovett to get swallowed up by the crowd dancing and singing loudly to - god, was that Britney? - and realized that he wasn't exactly looking to get back to Ira but was really looking to see if he could find Tommy among the sea of gyrating bodies. There were too many people, and Lovett gave up, returning to where he'd left Ira.

Later, Lovett stumbled out into the cooler after-midnight air, rubbing his arms. He was wobbly on his feet, swayed a little toward the curb as he waited for his Lyft. He'd ducked out earlier than originally planned, but his brain was all jumbled and loose from the bathroom encounter he still didn't quite believe actually happened.

He stretched his neck from side to side and fished his phone out of his pocket. He'd just swiped through to twitter when he heard Tommy's laugh behind him, bursting out along with the reverberating bass when the club door opened. He told himself not to turn, not to look, but when was he ever good at doing what he was told.

Tommy wasn't alone. The guy with him wasn't as hot as Tommy was but was objectively still pretty hot. He was shorter than Tommy, broad-shouldered, with biceps thicker than Tommy's neck. Like he could break Tommy in half. Like he could break Lovett in half. They were in each other's space, Tommy's hand on his arm, his on Tommy's stomach, in that way that said, 'your place or mine?'

Lovett looked back down at his phone and told himself to remember to breathe. His Lyft pulled up a moment later and he lurched inside.

"When are you going to get a dog, Tommy, huh? You can't just keep coming over here and asking to steal mine. What do you even need her for anyway? Are you trying to pick up at the dog park?"

Tommy's cheeks burned but the look he gave Lovett was fond nonetheless. Maybe a little exasperated. "I am not trying to pick up at the dog park, Lovett," he said, looking up at him from where he was squatting down to rub Pundit behind the ears. They'd had a good run, a good chance for Tommy to clear his mind. "She forces me to keep a steady running pace."

He snorted. "Yeah because you got ten minutes in and she sat down on the ground and made you carry her the rest of the way?"

Tommy shrugged as he stood up, raced a hand back through his sweat-damp hair. The real reason he kept asking to run with Pundit didn't have anything to do with dog parks or pacing or Pundit at all. He looked at Lovett. "Hey, if it works…"

Lovett looked back at Tommy with narrowed eyes, his arms crossed over his stomach in a defensive way. Tommy expected him to bring up Friday night every time they talked all weekend, even just via text, but he hadn't. Did Tommy have to be the one to bring it up?

"So, uh - did you have a good time Friday night?" he asked before he could think better of it, reaching out to hand Pundit's lead back to Lovett. "I thought the music was pretty good."

"It's a gay club, Tommy, of course the music's going to be good."

Tommy shrugged. "I don't know. I went to a place up in San Francisco once that played country music all night. Unironically."

That almost - almost! - got a smile out of Lovett. He masked it with a roll of his eyes. "Thanks for bringing my dog back in one piece and still breathing." He nudged Pundit inside the open door and turned to follow her.

"Do you want to go get lunch?" Tommy blurted out.

Lovett turned. "Right now? With you?"

He held his arms open. "Yes?"

His nose scrunched up. "You're all sweaty."

Tommy laughed. "I can take a shower if it'd make you feel better. I even have a change of clothes in the car if you let me use yours."

Lovett hesitated.

It wasn't like Tommy hadn't used Lovett's shower before. They'd lived together for years in D.C., sharing a bathroom. He'd alternated staying with Jon and with Lovett every time he made the trip down from San Francisco for the past three-and-a-half months. Hell, he'd even showered after a run two weeks ago, in a situation exactly like this.

The only thing that had changed between then and now was the run-in at the club Friday night.

Tommy didn't want to push it. "Never mind -"

Lovett stepped aside and gestured into the door. "You know where the towels are." He didn't look at Tommy as he jogged back to his car to get his duffel, and Lovett was sitting on the couch with a video game controller in hand when Tommy came inside.

"Thanks," Tommy called over his shoulder as he tugged his shirt off by the collar, over his head, on his way down the hall for the bathroom. 

Lovett really wanted to be anywhere else but where he was, sitting at a corner table in a place that served damn good burritos, watching Tommy flirt with their waitress. He didn't think his brain could handle it. He had just spent the last day and a half rewiring himself out of the idea that "Tommy is straight" and into the one where "Tommy might be a little bit gay." 

"Seriously, Tommy," he hissed once the woman had walked away, her long dark hair swinging behind her, "didn't you _just_ get laid the other night?"

Tommy blinked at him, his cheeks turning a shade of red not unlike the hot sauce he'd just doused his burrito with. "People can get laid more than once a week, Lovett," he said, voice a little more hoarse than was, frankly, necessary. "Are you just picking up the thread from the other night, shaming people's sexual choices?"

He wanted to bang his head off the table, so instead he picked up the obnoxiously large salt-rimmed margarita he ordered and drank from it. "I'm not judging you," he said quickly, when in fact of course he was judging Tommy. He made a living out of judgements, daily, practically. "I'm just trying to figure you out."

"You've known me for almost a decade," Tommy said, too casually. "Shouldn't you have figured me out by now?"

"I thought I did and now -" Lovett stopped in the middle of his thought, shook his head. "Just - look, are you gay or not? Because what I saw Friday night -"

Tommy rubbed his face and sighed. "I'm not gay, Lovett, I'm bi. And I don't understand why that's suddenly bothering you now."

"Why it's - _you_ don't understand - " Lovett flailed a little then sank back in his seat, slouching. There weren't enough margaritas in the world … "How long have you been bi then?" It wasn't an accusation. It _wasn't_ , no matter what it sounded like.

"Lovett," he said, and gave him a look that clearly said, are you really asking me that? 

He flapped a hand. "Fine, let me rephrase." Lovett pressed his fingers hard against the stem of his margarita glass, forced himself to slow down, take the edge out of his tone, and look at Tommy. "Why am I just finding out now, after knowing you for almost a decade, that you're bisexual?" 

Tommy leaned forward a little, blinked. "I had no idea that you didn't already know," he said after a moment.

Lovett's eyes went wide. "How would I already know? You've always been - I call you straight all the time! You never correct me. You just let me do it."

"I stopped trying to correct you after the first dozen times you did it and didn't listen to me," Tommy said simply, then continued on before Lovett could get going again. "I dated a guy when we lived together."

"You did not," Lovett said, affronted.

Tommy's cheek sank against his hand. "Yes, I did. Jake, from Treasury. He was over at the house all the time. You had full conversations with him. We dated for, like, four months."

Lovett opened his mouth to argue again, not to say that he didn't remember Jake, because he did remember Jake. He remembered that Jake was around for several months, in and out of the house, attached to Tommy's side, until he wasn't around anymore. He didn't remember looking at Jake and Tommy and thinking oh, they're dating. He couldn't remember any time - no, that wasn't true. He remembered bumping into a sleepy, half-dressed Jake leaving the bathroom in the middle of the night and returning to Tommy's bedroom, but that wasn't - 

Lovett attempted to make sense of his memories. He attempted to rearrange and re-categorize what he remembered. "But, you -"

Tommy set his burrito down. "What?"

Lovett didn't want to say it. He didn't want to admit it. "I didn't know," he said, quietly, looking down at his plate. "I've been pissed all weekend because for some reason you decided you didn't want to tell me, one of your best friends, something about who you are and here I am, too stupid to have noticed."

Tommy's face fell, relaxed a little. "Hey, no, you're not - it's not like I explicitly said, hey Lovett, I'm bi, but I also just - I guess I assumed you knew since - well, I wasn't hiding it, is what I'm saying."

"And I clearly wasn't looking for it," Lovett said miserably. But was that really true? Was it more that he was ignoring it? Having a crush on his straight roommate slash best friend was easier to laugh at, it was amusing and ridiculous. Having a crush on his not-so-straight roommate slash best friend who was clearly not interested in you? That was just sad.

"Please don't let this make things weird between us," Tommy continued on. When Lovett looked at him, he looked nervous, cheeks hollow and pale. He held his fist clenched against the table. "Okay?"

"Why would it be weird?" Lovett asked tightly. He ignored the fact that he had been ignoring Tommy all weekend. He forced a placid smile onto his face and picked up his margarita again. "I was just - it's fine, Tommy, really. Nothing's wrong. Nothing's going to change."

If Lovett saw a flicker of something cross Tommy's face, he didn't know how to interpret it. "Okay, good," Tommy said, breathing out. "Cool. Uh - thanks, man."

"Sure," Lovett said, hurrying to cover his frown with his large margarita. Both the margarita and burrito sat strangely in his stomach the rest of the day. Or maybe that was just the conversation.

Despite Lovett's insistence that nothing between them would change, Tommy could tell that they did. It was most apparent in the fact that they didn't hang out together as often. Just the two of them, at least. They hung out a lot with Jon and Emily outside of work. Lovett always had some kind of excuse ready to go when Tommy asked him out, just the two of them. 

Not to mention their dynamic on the pod, during ad reads especially, had changed. Lovett's teasing "my handsome boys" or "straight bros" comments had disappeared. Once, Tommy caught Lovett in the middle of a sentence, looked at him eagerly, his smile too big, waiting for the inevitable punch line, but Lovett interrupted himself and changed the subject, the joke falling flat. 

Tommy hated it, and he didn't know what to do about it. 

He desperately wanted to rewind time and go back to the moment before he ran into Lovett at the club. He wanted to go back to D.C. and tell him back then, so that all these years between them wouldn't have made this something Lovett was apparently incapable of handling. He wanted to go back and ask Lovett out, see what happened. He wanted to ask Lovett out _now_. He wanted -

Friday afternoon, one month after the chance encounter at the club, Tommy decided he needed to go for it. Their relationship, their friendship, was already messed up enough that Tommy couldn't help but think this couldn't make it any worse. 

Before he could talk himself out of it, he messaged Lovett while sitting right across the office from him: _Hey. I'm going out tonight, dancing. Join me?_ He looked over at him, watched Lovett pick up his phone and put it right back down again without answering.

Tommy frowned. _I'll buy you a drink. We can get dinner first. Your choice._

Lovett didn't even pick up his phone that time.

Tommy stared, unfocused, at his laptop screen for a long moment before he got up, shoved his phone into his pocket, and walked out. They had three rooms in this office, a temporary space until they got Crooked Media off the ground but better than crowding around Jon's dining room table like they'd been doing before. But suddenly even this space was too small, too close to Lovett.

He bumped into Jon, who was coming back in from a coffee run. "Hey, here's your drink," he said. He held out Tommy's order to him.

"Uh, thanks."

Jon looked over his shoulder at Lovett then back to Tommy. "Everything okay?"

Tommy should have said that yeah, everything was fine, even if it wasn't true. But he didn't say that. He shrugged, shot a quick, pained glance in Lovett's general direction, then stepped around Jon. "Just need to get out for a while. I'll be back." He hurried away before Jon could dig any deeper.

The air outside was warm, a thin layer of smog hanging low in the sky. Typical, Tommy had learned quickly, of Los Angeles. He missed the sea breeze, the salt in the air, in San Francisco. It was better that he was down here though, he reminded himself. At least, he thought it was until a month ago.

He walked a block and a half, found himself outside of the Starbucks that the drink in his hand had come from, and ducked inside to sit for a while. He sipped his coffee, set his phone out on the table, and waited, trying to will it to buzz, for Lovett to text him back.

His elbows on the table, Tommy rubbed his face and pressed his palms to his cheeks. If anything had to change between Lovett and Tommy, he had hoped -

The phone buzzed and he picked it up quickly, looked down at the text from Lovett: _I already have plans tonight._

His fingers flew over the screen. _Tomorrow then?_

 _No._ Tommy groaned and before he could respond, Lovett texted again. _You don't have to do this. Don't try and overcompensate. We're fine, really._

 _We're not fine! And I'm not trying to overcompensate. I'm trying to ask you out!_ Sent it before he could second guess any of the words, second guess that admission. 

_Lovett is typing …_ flickered on and off on his screen, then disappeared altogether. Tommy's hand tightened around his phone, and his stomach sank. Now he'd really fucked up. He should have just let things simmer between them, a new phase in their friendship, awkward and uncomfortable. 

Maybe he should have just stayed in San Francisco.

His phone buzzed again. _Did you seriously just ask me out via text message, Thomas?_

Tommy stared at the text for a long moment, his thumb hovering over the screen. Then he typed out, cautiously (but sending before he could think twice): _It's a yes or no question, Jon._ Then, another moment. _Are you actually busy or will you go out with me?_

When he didn't immediately receive a reply, he turned his phone face down on the table and pushed it away. He bent forward, elbows on the table, to push his hands over his face, through his hair to the back of his neck. It wasn't like he couldn't imagine what Lovett was thinking. He could hear every question, every argument, before they were even made. He'd made them to himself countless times over the last near-decade.

His phone was silent on the table in front of him, and he didn't want his coffee anymore. He just wanted - _fuck_ \- Lovett. Well, this could go very badly, he realized, suddenly, like a jolt right through his chest. He dug his fingers against the back of his neck. 

"So what would we do," came the question, from Lovett, and Tommy lifted his head to find him standing within arm's reach of the table, arms crossed defensively, "on this hypothetical date?"

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. "Not hypothetical, Lovett," he said, sitting back with a sigh. He folded his hands in his lap and looked at Lovett expectantly.

Lovett looked torn between turning on his heel, running away or throwing himself at Tommy, and Tommy recognized it. His heart beat a little faster with the hope that settled there, that maybe this wasn't going to go quite as badly as he anticipated.

"Answer the question, Tommy."

He gestured to the seat across the table from him and waited until Lovett made the decision to go ahead and sit down. He scooted the chair away from the table though, crossing his ankle over his knee. "You didn't answer mine yet," Tommy said.

With wide eyes, Lovett started to shake his head, stopped, and threaded his fingers through his curls. "I just want to have all the information, Tommy," he said, sounding exasperated. He could barely look at Tommy, cheeks flushed.

Tommy almost argued with him but backtracked and conceded. "I - well, it can go many ways," he said, gathering his thoughts. He hadn't exactly planned a date for him and Lovett, nothing outside of dinner and dancing like he brought up to start. "I mean, I asked you first, if you wanted to go to a club. We could do that. I didn't get to dance with you when we ran into each other, before." The idea of him and Lovett dancing, grinding it out together on the dancefloor with the bass thumping and Tommy's fingers slipped under the hem of Lovett's shirt, just over the bare skin of his stomach, came fast and hard into Tommy's mind. He cleared his throat and kept going. "Or we could just go out for dinner and drinks, which I know we do all the time, as friends, or with Jon, but - this would be different."

Lovett leaned in toward him a little. His throat worked around a swallow, and when he spoke, his voice was rough around the edges. "What would be different about it?" he asked.

"I'd pick you up," Tommy said, even though it wasn't like he didn't offer to drive Lovett around anyway. "Maybe bring you some flowers. Those purple ones you like, probably." He looked at Lovett, who nodded, imperceptibly, for him to continue. "Then we'd go out, maybe to that new Italian place by the office - I've been meaning to try it - and we order wine and dinner and then you make me order dessert and eat most of it yourself but I don't care. Then I would drive you back home -" The words started to come out in a rush now, even as he's picturing the whole night. Smiling at Lovett across the table, the argument over dessert, reaching out to wipe some of the tiramisu from the corner of Jon's mouth. Maybe he'd grab Tommy's wrist to stop him from pulling away, maybe he'd suck his thumb into his mouth to clean off the cream. 

"Then what, Tommy?" Lovett asked, voice low.

"I mean," he coughed a bit, cleared his throat. "You know, the usual end of date stuff." He pictured himself cornering Lovett in the doorway to his house, leaning into him with an arm stretched up over his head, bending down to kiss him. Lovett's hands would curl in against Tommy's sides, gripping his shirt more tightly as the kiss deepened.

Lovett's knee hit the underside of the table, and Tommy's attention jerked back to him. "Sorry," he muttered. "What if - what if I don't want to go out with you?"

The fantasy date dissolved and Tommy sat back, feeling his face grow hot. "Right, yeah, that's - " Of course Lovett wasn't interested in dating him. Wouldn't he have known if he was? All that flirting was performative. Lovett hadn't even realized that Tommy was bi until a month ago, and that's when all of the usual banter had ceased. 

"No," Lovett snapped, loud enough to draw the attention of a few other coffee drinkers in the Starbucks. He gave a sheepish grin, a shrug, and lowered his voice again. "I mean, I don't want to _go out_ ," he said, " _to dinner_. What if I want to just stay in? With you. Skip all the build up and just get straight to the, what did you call it, 'usual end of date stuff?'"

It took Tommy a moment to close his mouth, which was hanging open like he couldn't believe he was hearing Lovett proposition him. He blinked. "Yes," he said firmly. "That's a very good idea too." 

"Cool," Lovett said. "Tonight? I don't actually have plans. I mean, I guess I did because I was just going to go try to pick up but look, I'm a sure thing, Tommy, so as long as you're on board, getting laid isn't out of the question tonight after all. For either of us."

Something wasn't sitting well from the exchange, and Tommy struggled to put it right in his mind. "No," he said quickly, then rerouted because he wasn't at all saying no to getting laid, to him and Lovett getting laid, together, with each other. "I just want to be clear, I'm not looking for a hook-up, not with you."

If Lovett was surprised, he didn't exactly look it, though Tommy noticed that his expression changed a little, went softer. His shoulders relaxed. 

"I can get a hook-up anytime," he kept going. "Not that I want to, not if we're - not if we do this."

Lovett half-snorted. "Yeah, well, I saw the guy you went home from the club with. How can you even be interested in me after someone like that?"

Tommy shook his head. "Lovett, come on. I'm so into you. You've got to know that."

"How am I supposed to know that?" he said, voice raising again a little bit. "You let me flirt and tease and whatever but I didn't even know anything else was a possibility until a month ago!"

His heartbeat sped up even more and he scraped his chair forward, speaking urgently. "It is, Jon. It is absolutely a possibility and please - look, if we're going to do this, I can't just have you for one night or an hour or whatever. I'm going to want more. I _already_ want more."

"Fuck," Lovett breathed out.

Tommy felt the tips of his ears heat up, and he ducked his face so he didn't have to see Jon staring at him, fish-mouthed, actually speechless for once in his life. He waited, miserably, for Lovett to say this was a one-time offer or that he wasn't interested in dating Tommy or a relationship or whatever. All of the reasons and excuses Tommy had heard throughout his life scattered through his mind, and he almost missed Lovett's answer.

It was a simple, "yes," accompanied by a shrug, like it was nothing at all.

"Yes, to what?" Tommy asked, words tight, forced.

"To this," Lovett said. "To a date. To more than one date. To sex tonight and tomorrow and more than once a week. To this a year from now. To you. Us. Whatever the fuck you want, Tommy. I want it too."

He gaped at him. "You - do?"

"Of course I do, you idiot. I'm crazy about you."

Tommy smiled, a thin press of his lips together, then wider still, until a laugh bubbled up out of him and he was smiling so widely that his cheeks hurt. He knocked his knee against Lovett's under the table. "Me, too," he said. He ran a hand back through his hair and shook his head. "Fuck, I'm really into you, Jon."

"Good," Lovett said, slapping a palm against the table as he stood up. "That's settled. We're on the same page. Everything's clear now." Tommy scrambled to get up too, shoving his phone into his back pocket and skirting the table to get to Lovett's side. "Are you going to kiss me, Vietor, or do I have to wait until we get to the _good stuff_ at the end of our date?"

There was a brief moment where Tommy considered arguing that he didn't want to kiss Lovett for the first time in the middle of a Starbucks on La Cienega, but his hesitation didn't last long at all. Not with Jon stepping up into his space, hands at Tommy's waist, fisting the sides of his shirt. So be it if this was where they had their first kiss. They had a lot of other firsts (and many, many more kisses) to have. 

This was fine. This was good. This was better than fine and good.

"Tommy?" Lovett's voice was small, unsure, and Tommy hated it.

He focused back in on Lovett, nodding. "Yeah," he said. He lifted a hand to cup Lovett's cheek, thumb swiping the edge of his jaw. "Yeah, now's - now's _great_ ," he whispered, leaning down to slide his mouth against Jon's. He breathed out, shaking a little at the touch, still cognizant that they were in a public place but also so into the feeling of Jon's soft mouth moving against his. Lips opening. Tongue hesitant but probing, just briefly, too briefly, before Tommy pulled back. He leaned his forehead against Jon's and let his fingers press into his jawline.

"Okay," Lovett said, in a faraway voice. "Okay, so that's - yeah. We should get back to work so I can spend the rest of the day thinking about tonight. Fuck if I'll get anything done, but we have to - try."

Tommy nodded. "Right, work," he echoed. He kissed him again, pressing their chests together for a longer moment than he intended. 

Lovett pulled back first this time, put enough space between them. He looked at Tommy, eyes dark. "Work first," he said. "This later." He turned around and walked quickly out the door. Tommy followed him.

When Lovett took Tommy's hand halfway back to the office, slurping his iced coffee and sneaking and exchanging grins with him as they walked, Tommy didn't let go. He just laced their fingers and squeezed lightly. He held open the door for Lovett, brushed their arms as they walked in together.

"So, Tommy and I are dating now," Lovett announced to Jon as they got into the office. "That means, don't get all offended when I stop flirting with you on the pod."

Jon was fiddling with his phone when they came in and looked up with a baffled expression on his face. He looked from Lovett to Tommy, mouth open with some kind of question. Tommy knew his face was red, but he laughed anyway. He hadn't expected Lovett to just lay it all out there, even just to Jon, straight away. "Right," he said carefully, and maybe a little sternly, "you're only allowed to flirt with me from now on, on the pod and off it."

Lovett sat dramatically at his desk and sighed loudly. "Oh, very well, Thomas," he said, but his eyes were bright, corners of his mouth twitching into a smile. "I hope you're this bossy _all_ the time," he said.

Tommy's face got even redder. 

Jon finally piped up from the other side of the room. "Congratulations?" he ventured. "And probably good luck, though I have a feeling I'm going to need it more than either of you will." He looked down at his phone again. "Em says congrats too and wants you both to come over for dinner tonight to celebrate or something."

"Can't," Lovett said, just as Tommy started to say that they already have plans. He looked over and let Lovett go first. "I have a date," he said, smiling widely. 

Lovett made a grabby hand motion at him, and Tommy crossed the room and bent down to brush his mouth against his. "You're a monster," Tommy teased, fondly. Lovett pressed a hand against Tommy's collarbone and let it linger as they kissed again.

On the other side of the tiny office, Jon cleared his throat until Tommy pulled back. He didn't take his eyes off Lovett's as he grinned. " _We_ have a date," Tommy corrected.

He didn't want to, but he went back to his desk and tried to concentrate on working, though all he could think about was Lovett in his apartment, in his arms, in his _bed_ , in just a few (very long) hours.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments & kudos are always appreciated <3


End file.
